


Throw Cares Away

by Lavendergaia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 15:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2855960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavendergaia/pseuds/Lavendergaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz thought the hardest part of presents would be choosing them, not wrapping them. </p><p>(The hardest part is actually getting enough nerve to give it to her.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Throw Cares Away

He’s just about ready to throw everything off the table and maybe try to see if he can fit some of these things in the stockings hanging over the fake fireplace when Skye pokes her head in the lab. “Hey, Fitz,” she says slowly, and there’s a faux cheer to her voice. “Whatcha working on?”

He drops the scissors on the table, causing the roll of snowflake wrapping paper to roll away from him. His reflexes aren’t yet sharp enough to catch it before it falls off the edge of his work table, but luckily Skye is a lot quicker than he is and she grabs it in midair. She really is becoming mini-May. “Just…trying to get this done,” he grumbles under his breath, avoiding her gaze. There’s several rolls of wrapping paper surrounding his lab table, as well as a couple rolls of tape; the few on the floor are twisted almost beyond recognition from when he got frustrated with them.

Quickly rerolling the wrapping paper, Skye looks over the gifts, nodding to herself. “Anything here for me?”

He rolls his eyes at her, then points to a box that sits off to the side, the green and red paper on it making it look almost more like a hexagonal shape. “Tried yours first,” he grunts. “You can see…well…yeah.”

Skye shrugs, then picks up her present and shakes it to try to hear what’s inside. “It’s just paper, Fitz. It’s gonna get torn off in like two seconds.”

After snatching the gift back from her, he says, “I used to be really good at this.” At her raised eyebrow, he shrugs. “I’m good at knowing how much paper to cut and I always got, you know, crisp lines, straight edges.”

“Engineers take wrapping presents seriously, huh?”

He makes a face at her, but can’t help but smile at her overly enthusiastic grin. “Jemma used to always con me into wrapping all of her gifts. We’d put everything out on the table and she’d always ‘get busy’ makin’ my favorite dinner or cookies for me to eat so I’d end up doing all of her presents too. But she’d always personalize them or make them fancy…add a candy cane or, or a bow, something like that.”

“Sounds nice.” Skye leans her elbows on the table, rolling up the scraps of wrapping paper into tiny balls. “Do you want me to help?”

“Skye, I can—”

“Christmas is tomorrow. I mean, technically Christmas started an hour ago, so Merry Christmas.” She nudged him gently in the shoulder. “C’mon, let me help. We can do like what you did with Hunter on the plane, you tell me what to do and I’ll be your hands. Except no one has to worry about exploding this time.” When he avoids her gaze, staring down at the Xbox game he’s trying to wrap for Mack, she lets out a loud sigh. “Come on, Fitz! Plus, you’ll be teaching me a very valuable skill, everyone should know how to wrap and I very much do not. I put all my gifts in bags.”

His eyes snap up to hers at that admission, narrowing slightly at her confession. “You did not.”

“Coulson’s has Captain America on it.”

The way they stare at each other is a clear battle of wills and eventually, she wins. “C’mon,” he whines, waving her over to his side of the table. “You need to know how to wrap.” She grins widely at him and skips over, wrapping her arm around his neck. “Happy Christmas,” he mutters before he slides one of the tape dispensers towards her.

It goes just about as well as Fitz expects, in that it’s a total disaster. Skye listens to all of his instructions, but doesn’t seem to understand the folds, and he knows he’s not articulating well, and it just makes him more frustrated, and thus less and less coherent. He tries positioning her hands in what he thinks is the correct way, but he can’t make her work the muscle memory when his own muscle memory can’t even remember how to do it.

Fitz is _this close_ to throwing something against the wall when Skye pats his back and says, “Have you considered just putting everything in gift bags? I’ve got extras in my bunk.”

Before he can answer, a soft cough fills the room. “Perhaps I can be of assistance?”

There’s no reason for him to look up to identify the speaker, but his eyes are drawn to Jemma’s form standing in the doorway of the lab. She calmly meets his gaze, smiling at him even as she wrings her hands in front of her. “I noticed the lights on,” Jemma says, biting her bottom lip. “I think I can help.”

Fitz is about to protest when Skye sighs loudly. “ _Please_. I am useless.”

Approaching slowly, Jemma looks at Mack’s half-wrapped present, then starts refolding the edges. “Tape?” Skye quickly hands her a piece and she affixes it before spinning the box around and folding up the other side. When she’s done, Skye already has another piece ready. “There,” Jemma says, presenting it to Fitz. “I know it’s not as good as you would have done it, but…”

“No, it’s…it’s good.” He smiles shyly at her, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I’ve watched you do it a million times,” she says demurely. “It’s not as neat as you get it, but maybe with some fresh paper and some guidance we can get it there.”

“No, no, it’s great. Sounds great,” Fitz says, nodding quickly.

Holding up one of the dispensers, Skye says, “I can provide the tape. Clearly, this was more of a three person mission than we had previously anticipated.”

Jemma smiles at her, then raises her eyebrows at Fitz, who nods and goes to cut a new sheet of paper for the next gift. “I have stuff in my bunk if you’d like,” Jemma says. “Labels and bows and ribbon.”

Skye makes the decision for Fitz, nodding quickly. “Oh, good idea, he was going to just write people’s names on their gift in sharpie. Plus, it’ll fancy it up. I’ll grab it.” She rips off a few pieces of tape and leaves them hanging on the edge of the table for easy reach. “In your closet, I assume?”

“Should be in a Christmas bag on the floor. Don’t worry about going in there, I’ve had everything wrapped for weeks.”

After Skye leaves with a salute, Fitz realizes just how alone they are in the dimly lit lab and focuses on putting the next gift in the middle of the paper. He’s able to get the first part done, he’s not totally incompetent, it’s just the sides that give him issues. When he’s done with that, he slides it over to Jemma, who watches his face for corrections when she folds up the sides. Instead of trying to verbally give advice—because he’s not sure what will happen if he tries to speak right now—he just places his hands over hers, just slightly adjusting her hand position. She licks her lips and nods lightly and when they’re done, the new biography on the Howling Commandoes he had bought for Trip is the easily the best wrapped package on the table.

As Fitz unrolls the wrapping paper, Jemma grabs for a paper bag at the far corner of the table. “No!” Fitz shouts as the movement catches his eye and Jemma immediately freezes, eyes going wide with alarm. “That’s…” He reaches over her, pulling the bag out of her grasp and hiding it under the table. “That’s for…that’s yours.”

“Oh,” she says softly. “Sorry.”

In what Fitz considers a fairly lucky break, Skye comes storming in at that minute, shaking a large bag with Santa’s face on it. “Really, Simmons? How many bows does one person need?” She pulls out a package of labels and throws it on the table. “There’s _eight_ different colors of ribbon in here. Who needs eight different colors of ribbon?”

Scoffing in mock offense, Jemma says, “I like to be prepared!”

Fitz fills out the gift labels at Skye’s insistence as Jemma wraps the next present—where Jemma managed to find chemistry-themed Christmas labels, he’ll never know. Between the three of them, they make quick work of the rest of the gifts, though he’s highly aware of Jemma’s present sitting between his feet on the floor. Almost as aware as he is every time her arm brushes him against his, or the way her hair continues to smell of the same honeysuckle shampoo she’s been using since the Academy (surely she can’t be using the same shampoo for ten years?), or how she always looks at him for approval after every finished present, grinning back at him after he nods or smiles.

Even though they finish as a team a lot quicker than Fitz would have going at it alone, it’s late when they’re done. Skye doesn’t even suggest grabbing some eggnog and Skye has been pretty much constantly suggesting eggnog. “This was fun,” she says as she helps Fitz and Jemma put the gifts in the box he had used to carry them into the lab. “I’ve never had any reason to wrap gifts for people before.”

“I’m glad we could help,” Jemma says, tucking her hair behind her ears and smiling.

Before Fitz can do anything other than nod, Skye glances up at the ceiling. “When did someone put mistletoe in your lab?”

His blood runs cold as he looks up and Skye isn’t making fun of him, there is actually mistletoe in his lab, _right over his lab table._ He’s not even sure what he can possibly say, he just stares at Skye with betrayal in his eyes. She holds her hands up in defense. “It wasn’t me!” she protests. “I swear. I know the rules, no mistletoe in the lab. Here.” She climbs up on the table, standing on the tops of her toes to pull the offending plant down. “It’s gone. No harm, no foul.”

“It was probably just a prank, Fitz,” Jemma says softly, eyes focusing on the ground. “I’m sure no one meant anything by it.”

Shooting a mischievous look at Fitz, Skye holds the mistletoe over Jemma’s head before wrapping her arms around the shorter woman and giving her a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek. “Merry Christmas, Simmons!”

Jemma laughs loudly, leaning into the hug. “Happy Christmas, Skye.”

Not wanting to seem like a complete Grinch, Fitz takes a deep breath, then presses a soft kiss to Jemma’s cheek. She whirls around to look at him, staring at him with wide brown eyes just as he presses a kiss to Skye’s cheek. “H-Happy Christmas, you two,” he mumbles. “Thanks for everything. See you in the morning.” He picks up his box and leaves the lab without looking behind him because he’s not sure he wants to see what he’s leaving behind.

\----

This is the second glass of Hunter’s special eggnog that Skye has shoved into his hand, but Fitz takes it with a smile anyway. It’s hard to be mad at Skye on a regular day, let alone a day when she’s given him a six foot tall stuffed monkey (which is undoubtedly breaking the “any gift that Amazon will ship to a P.O. Box” rule, but when has Skye ever really been in trouble?). Fitz isn’t entirely sure how both he and the giant monkey are supposed to fit in his bunk, let alone his bed as Skye suggested, but he’s sure he’ll figure it out. He and Mack give each other the same video game, which causes the larger man to laugh loudly and slap his back a few times.

He’s feeling altogether pretty great about a Christmas where he can’t see his mum and he’s stuck eating whatever Coulson and Koenig have cooked up in the base’s kitchen for dinner when he feels a light tap on his shoulder. “Happy Christmas, Fitz,” Jemma says, handing him a large, wrapped item. It’s heavy and he holds it shakily in his bad hand as he tears the paper off, trying to be respectful of the elaborate green bow she has wrapped around it even though he really wants to see what’s inside.

“ _Jane Goodall: 50 Years at Gombe_ ,” he reads off the cover as he runs his hand over the exquisitely made book. It’s bound in leather with gold-lined pages and gold inlay on the cover. “Jemma, this…this is…”

She’s smiling broadly as she carefully pulls back the cover. “Look.”

Fitz swallows hard at the signature. “Jane Goodall signed this?” His entire mouth is dry.

“Do you like it?”

“Are you…?” He holds the book protectively to his body as he hugs her and she giggles in surprise. “It’s amazing.”

Jemma cheeks are flushed and she clutches the back of her neck as she grins at him. “I’m so glad.”

Suddenly, Fitz feels like the worst person in the world as he glances over at the tree. He can’t give her her gift, not the gift that’s under there. Not after _this_. But he can’t give her her other gift either, not least because he doesn’t have it on him, but also not here, not in front of everyone. She’s not looking at him particularly expectantly, but she knows that he got her something because he told her so, and this is the only socially acceptable time to give her said thing.

Chewing his cheek nervously, he leaves his eggnog on the table to pull her gift out from under the tree. “Here. Happy Christmas.”

Her eyes light up and he feels a bit like a slug as she unwraps it. Pulling off the top of the white rectangular box, she says, “A jumper! Oh, how nice.”

He flushes from shame, avoiding her gaze. “I, um, know you like that color. It…it always looks good on you.”

“It’s lovely. Thank you,” she says, her smile never faltering. She squeezes his shoulder affectionately before putting the top back on the box. When Bobbi calls to her from across the room, she pats his shoulder one last time before excusing herself.

A few feet away, Skye has once again caught Trip under a bunch of mistletoe, but when they finally break for oxygen, she looks over and glares at him as if he’d just personally canceled Christmas. “A _sweater_? Really, Fitz?”

Fitz doesn’t bother answering, deciding to chug the rest of his eggnog instead. Yeah, he knows, he’s the worst.

Later, after all the presents have been opened and dinner has been devoured, they all gather in the lounge again to maybe, possibly agree on a Christmas film to watch. Skye doesn’t make it any easier by assuring the crowd that there’s not a Christmas movie on earth that she can’t find somewhere on the internet (Coulson glares at her for that), and then more and more suggestions are thrown out. Everything from _It’s a Wonderful Life_ to _A Christmas Story_ to _Mean Girls_ (“It’s got Christmas parts!”) is thrown out and Fitz figures this is his chance.

While the others argue, Fitz gently takes Jemma by the hand, hoping she can’t feel the way his fingers tremble over hers. Jemma raises her eyebrows at him, but doesn’t protest, allowing him to lead her out into the hallway. Sometime before dinner, she had changed into the jumper he’d gotten her, which either makes this better or worse, he’s not sure. “Here,” Fitz mumbles, pulling a small box out of the pocket of his jeans. The paper is silvery and sparkly, and not nearly as neatly wrapped as his other gifts, but it’s clear from the creases of multiple refolds that extensive time was taken to get it looking as neat and tidy as it is. “I, uh, this is for you.”

She frowns even as she takes it from him. “You already gave me my gift, Fitz.” She gestures down to the jumper she has on. The color really does look wonderful on her, but then, what doesn’t.

“No, that was…” He trails off as he shakes his head. “That was if I couldn’t…couldn’t get up the courage to give you this.”

Jemma’s hands are careful as she unwraps the paper. She looks up at him with uncertainty in her eyes when she sees the little black box, then flips open the top. “Oh, Fitz!”

The earrings are sterling silver, a pearl at the base with intricately carved swirls dangling down about an inch. “I know you can only wear studs in the lab,” he says slowly, watching her face as she runs her fingers over the earrings. “But you don’t…I mean, you’re not always in the lab, thought you might like something else, maybe, you know, for a…a change.”

“They’re absolutely beautiful,” she says with a sigh, eyes bright as she tears her gaze away from the box. “You made them, didn’t you?” He’s suddenly anxious in a way he hadn’t been before, wondering if there are any particularly obvious flaws that he hadn’t seen or been able to correct in time, wondering if he shouldn’t have tried to make something so important with one bad hand. “They’ve got your personal style to them,” she says, as if sensing his discomfort, and her smile grows wider. “The sharp lines on the edges, that’s all Fitz.”

He lets out a long breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Was helping Mack down in the costume storage, we were, uh, inventorying some jewelry before an undercover mission—” Jemma gapes at him, clearly intrigued, but he waves it away as a story for another time, “—and I found this old…an old pearl bracelet. Clasp was all rusted away, other than the, uh, pearls, which were real, it was a piece o’ junk, but I asked Coulson if he wanted me to fix it and he said just to leave it as is, too out of style to be useful on a mission anyway.” Rubbing the back of his head, he says, “Found it a few weeks ago and when Coulson gave me p-permission, I made it into these earrings instead. I used real silver, should be f-fine on your ears. Won’t turn ‘em green or anything.”

Rather than respond with words, Jemma wraps her arm around his neck and kisses him. It’s resolute and decisive and Fitz’s eyes fall shut as he guides his mouth gently back against hers, savoring the unexpected but long awaited moment. If he hadn’t known what falling felt like, he would have equated it to this, the swoop low in his stomach and warmth bursting through every nerve of his body. But no, he realizes with the tiniest part of his brain that is still capable of thought, this must be what flying feels like.

When she eases away, tentatively, as if unsure if she wants to leave his space, Fitz opens his eyes to watch her. Her brown eyes are dark and her cheeks are flushed, chest heaving as if she’s trying to catch her breath. Fitz understands that feeling; he hasn’t been able to breathe around her since he was seventeen, ninety feet of ocean water be damned.

Suddenly, his gaze flicks to the ceiling and he wonders who he has to thank—Skye’s mostly to blame for the mistletoe popping up in the doorways, but he’s fairly sure that a few of them have been Coulson’s doing as well—only to find the ceiling bare of any extraneous greenery. Just the usual cement and fluorescent lighting.

His face must show his surprise because Jemma giggles and touches his shoulder to get his attention. “I love them, Fitz,” she says. She’s already taking the plain studs out of her ears, slipping them into the box to trade the earrings he made her. “Thank you so much.”

“’m glad,” he says, unable to stop grinning.

Jemma takes hold of one of his hands, slipping the new earrings into them. “Will you help me put them on?”

Fitz’s heart stops at the thought of trying to put small pieces of metal into tiny holes in her head. “I-I-I don’t t-think, Jem, I, I mean, y-you should, don’t—”

“It’s fine, Fitz,” she says as she sweeps her hair back from the side of her head for him to see her ear and the wide, pale expanse of her neck, as if that’s possibly going to help him. “I don’t have a mirror, I could use your assistance. I trust you.”

In these past ten years, he’s probably seen her put earrings on without a mirror a thousand times. But if she’s trying to humor him, the least he can do is indulge her, right? Fitz takes a step closer to her, can see goosebumps erupt on her shoulder where her sweater has slipped down a bit. He hesitates for a moment, takes a few deep breaths and tries to get both of his hands to stop shaking. Even the skin of her ear is ridiculously soft as he guides the earring in place and tightens on the fastener. It’s no different from a million engineering tasks, but he wants to be precise, not to hurt her, to do just this one thing right for her.

When he step back, she runs her fingers gently over the earring and gives him a bright smile before presenting the other side of her head. This time is slightly less nerve wracking and after he attaches the back to the earring, he allows himself the pleasure of tucking her hair behind her ears, of letting his fingertips trail down trail down the side of her neck. Jemma shivers. “How do they look?” she whispers.

He’s not sure how to respond. The silver hanging by her ears doesn’t shine nearly as much as her eyes. There’s been a few times in his life he’s questioned it, but since she jumped out of that plane he’s now sure there’s nothing more worthwhile on this planet than her smile. He loves seeing her wearing his earrings, but there’s nothing more he can ask for than just to be awed by her presence every day. Finally, he just says, “You’re beautiful.” Apparently, it’s good enough because she curls her hand into his, linking their fingers together. He can feel a heartbeat under his palm, wonders if it’s his or hers or theirs, finally the same again.

Fitz wants to kiss her again—he wants to kiss her all the time, it’s been a direct hindrance on his life—and she seems to know this, acknowledging it by placing her free hand on his shoulder, curling it around until her fingers press intimately against the sensitive skin at the back of his neck. He’s not sure if he’s supposed to take that as encouragement, but he does, bending down so she doesn’t have to lean up on her toes this time. Fitz has never felt particularly good about his below average stature, but it seems that he’s the perfect height to kiss Jemma Simmons. If he believed in fate, that would be one more point in the favor of fate.

She’s the one who licks first at his bottom lip, gingerly, as if unsure of his reaction. His reaction, of course, is to groan and open his mouth to accept whatever she wants to give him. As his hand finds her hip, anchoring himself at that point, she smiles against his lips. Her grip changes from his shoulder to the back of his head, fingers stroking his hair before she holds on and angles his head how she wants it to kiss him deeper. Fitz has probably called her ‘bossy’ more times than he can even begin to quantify, but he will never complain about that particular trait ever again.

Jemma sighs as she rests her forehead against his, but he can’t stop kissing her, pressing his lips against her jaw and her cheeks and her nose and back to her lips, just a light dusting of his skin to hers. She murmurs wordlessly and moves even closer to him as he slides his hand from her hip to rub up and down her back. Beneath his touch, he can feel a tremble in her shoulder blades—he’s not sure if it’s good or bad, but it settles as he presses his hand between them, letting his warmth seep into her skin, leaving his lips to rest on her temple.

She kisses right above the top button of his shirt and he has to bite his lip to keep from cursing. “I think the others were almost deciding on a movie, it sounded like it was going to be _A Christmas Story_.” Jemma nudges the underside of his chin with her nose before meeting his eyes. “Is that something that would interest you?”

This feels a bit like a trick question and he searches her face for the correct answer. “It’s not my favorite or…or anything?”

She’s already walking backwards down the hallway, towards the bunks, his hand twisted tightly in hers. “Well, if you don’t mind missing it, I would really like to see how these earrings look. In a mirror. In my bunk.”

“That would…yeah, that’d be okay,” he says, allowing her to drag him without the slightest bit of protest.

They pass by no less than seven bits of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling on the way. Neither feel the urge to stop.


End file.
